Author: drmarchudson

Categories
Australia

November 4, 1999 – Australians have highest per capita emissions

Twenty-five years ago, on this day, November 4th, 1999,

a report by The Australia Institute on Australians having highest per capita emissions is front page news for the Melbourne.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was Australia was built as a settler colony, and was burning enormous quantities of shitty coal, especially in Victoria, where they had basically limitless brown coal, which is filthy on so many levels.

And it’s hardly a surprise that Australia had the highest per capita emissions given the shittiness of their houses, the sources of their energy. Btw transport is not really that big a factor, because, despite the myth, most Australians don’t cover long distances. They are mostly huddled in various cities on the coast. There’s the myths that we like to tell ourselves and then there’s the reality. 

What we learn is that you can tell Australians that they’re causing planetary mayhem as much as you like. It won’t change anything.

What happened next, Australia’s per capita emissions continued to be berserk and are down unto this day.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

November 4, 1988 – no quick fix on climate, warns Australian Environment Minister

November 4, 1991 – UK Government launches first of many blame-shifting publicity campaigns on #climate

November 4, 2006 – Australians “Walk against Warming”

Categories
United States of America

November 3, 1916 -measurement of ice flow shows climate change

One hundred and eight years ago, on this day, November 3rd, 1916,

But let’s go way back to Nov. 3, 1916, courtesy of Google News’s archive search, where we’ll see a story in the Hartford (Conn.) Courant headlined, “Fossil Rocks in Canada Studied.” The subhead under the headline reads, in part, “Measurement of Ice Flow Shows Climate Change.” https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/0908/why-are-they-calling-it-climate-change-now

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 302ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the earth seemed to be warming up. And this was quite possibly just some sort of natural fluctuation. Carbon dioxide is only in the normal order of things, one among many, many factors. Before the denialists leap on this, I would say that since the 1800s, it has not been a normal run of things, because we have been putting so much fossil fuel residue into the atmosphere. It wasn’t the Industrial Revolution so much as the Fossil Fuel Revolution.

What we learn is that from very early in the 20th century, people were saying there was a slight warming (possibly cyclical). Then by the late 1930s, the Arctic was visibly warming. There’s reports on that in various newspapers. And then by 1951. Rachel Carson was talking about it in her book, “The world beneath us”.

What happened next? We kept burning fossil fuels. And the emissions kept climbing. Be interesting to know if Svante Arrhenius saw this, or said anything more after his 1896 piece of work? Did he keep a folder saying the earth is warming? Was it the sort of thing that Guy Callendar was looking at?

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

November 3, 1990 – money for independent climate scientists? Yeah, nah

November 3, 1990 – more smears about the IPCC, in the Financial Times 

November 3, 2000 – Australian denialists get American scientist to testify about Kyoto Protocol, smear IPCC

Categories
Coal Upcoming events

Upcoming event: “The Coal in Violence” – Andreas Malm, Thurs Nov 7, 6pm, London

So, presumably a Swedish journalist travelling around British coal fields in the 1920s and wondering about global warming will have been influenced by Svante Arrhenius, the Swedish scientist who’d done the calculations about what carbon dioxide build-up would mean in 1895 as a way of distracting himself from a messy divorce.

But maybe not. Maybe Lotka (see footnote)? In any case, all will be revealed by Andreas Malm (for it is he), this coming Thursday, in Bloomsbury, London.

Text and image below copied and pasted from the website of the Social History Society.

6.00pm, Followed by a wine reception

Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up A Pipeline: learning to fight in a world on fire, discusses British histories of coal intertwined with Swedish working-class literature in the 2024 Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture.

In 1928, a young Ivar Lo Johansson, soon to become the leading Swedish working-class novelist, published what might have been the first consistently dire warning about the climatic effects of large-scale coal combustion. It was included in a book of reportage about life in the British coal districts. What led Lo Johansson to his precocious prediction? This lecture will trace the intersecting paths of subaltern wilderness politics and early climate science in the Swedish movement of working-class literature in general and the works of Lo Johansson in particular.

Andreas Malm is associate senior professor of human ecology at Lund University, Sweden. His latest books, both out from Verso in October, are The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth and, written with Wim Carton, Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown.

For information contact Katy Pettit k.pettit@bbk.ac.uk

Book via Eventbrite

And back to All Our Yesterdays text.

  1. Hat-tip to the Morning Star‘s excellent “what’s on” listing, inevitably called “The Red List.”)

2. That Lotka thing? See this from 1983.

Categories
Activism Australia United Kingdom

November 2, 1994 – Greenpeace vs climate risk for corporates…

Thirty years ago, on this day, November 2nd, 1994,

 Greenpeace trying to attack market perceptions of energy companies

GREENPEACE has launched a strong campaign to show that market perceptions of energy companies are overblown and do not take into account the potential impact of climate change.

The environmental organisation said yesterday that climate change presented major long term risks to the carbon fuel industry which were not adequately discounted in financial analysis.

Quoting a report released in London, Greenpeace said global warming was a long term risk to investors in the carbon fuel industry.

Wilson, N. (1994) CARBON PAPER’S CLIMATE RISK WARNING The Australian Financial Review 3rd November [this while their Redbank case was still pending – decision came down a week later]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Greenpeace had been banging on about the Climate Time Bomb [LINK] . The first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties was due to take place in another four months in Berlin. And Greenpeace was trying to rally the “responsible” and responsive within the capitalist sector to show up in every sense, especially the reinsurance industry. This is an entirely sensible tactic. I think it didn’t work, but that’s hardly Greenpeace’s fault. 

What we learn is that capitalism is by no means a monolith. Intrasectoral and intersectoral battles are always going on. Groups like Greenpeace will try and enlist and mobilise, which you can call cowardly or you can call sensible – it depends how you’re feeling, I guess. None of it worked, many of us are gonna die messily and soon. 

What happened next? COP1 happened. Insurance and reinsurance groups turned up for day one and then went home. The oil executives stuck around. Guess who won. And you can read more about this in Jeremy Leggett’s the Carbon War. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

November 2, 1972 – “Eco-pornography … Advertising owns Ecology”…

November 2, 2006 – “RIP C02” says New Scientist

November 2, 2009 – , Australian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull seals own doom by not bending knee to shock jock

Categories
United Kingdom

November 2, 1957 – “Our Coal Fires are melting the poles” Birmingham Post

Sixty seven years ago, on this day, November 2nd, 1957, it was laid out, simply

Douglas, T.S. 1957. Our Coal Fires are Melting the Poles. Birmingham Post & Gazette, November 2

Compare this with the Los Angeles Times, May 19, the same year…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the International Geophysical Year was underway, but there had also been a meeting in Toronto of the geodesy people….  And maybe the Birmingham post was picking up on that. 

What we learn is that the idea of CO2 build up causing catastrophe was well-established by then. And what else we learn is that if you really understand the history, you can see where seemingly random shit comes from, perhaps. 

What happened next. Charles David Keeling started taking his measurements in Hawaii the following year. Roger Revelle started working within the bureaucracy. Lyndon Johnson said it in 1965. But it would be another many decades before a US president would take any of this seriously. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

November 2, 1972 – “Eco-pornography … Advertising owns Ecology”…

November 2, 2006 – “RIP C02” says New Scientist

November 2, 2009 – , Australian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull seals own doom by not bending knee to shock jock

Categories
Academia Media

November 1, 2004 – Brilliant “Balance as Bias” article published

Twenty years ago, on this day, November 1st, 2004 two academics write a crucial article about how the media works and is worked by denialists…

Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias

And the academic article is here

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the denialists had been able to get lots of their bullshit published in mainstream outlets, not on the basis of, you know, peer reviewed science or anything credible, but simply by using (or abusing if you want) the idea that the media has to show “both sides.” This is aside from the fact of who owns the media and what their long-term interests or short term interests are. And here we have a paper which lays that out by Boykoff and Boykoff. A good paper, you should read it. Unfortunately, it’s still largely relevant. And if you’re like me, he went through the naughties and teens writing to the BBC complaining about all the space given to nutjob denialists and getting the form response about BBCs responsibility for impartiality and giving both sides of an argument and then you would write back and say you don’t give Holocaust deniers equal billing. And then they wouldn’t reply to that. At least some of these people must have known better, but consider themselves blameless. Everyone is blameless. So it’s someone else’s fault.

What I think we can learn from this is that “our” systems of thought and truthiness have been successfully hacked.

What happened next: The denialists kept using the argument around impartiality and then complaining about censorship, etc. Some media outlets banned denialist comments from under the line. But on the whole, they didn’t. And the thing about climate change is it enrages so many people. And part of the reason it enrages is that humans are not on top. And another part for a lot of them is that they kind of by now know that they backed the wrong horse. And they hate the fact that the hippies were right and that they were wrong.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

References/see also

Constantine Boussalis∗ and Travis G. Coan 2013 ‘Balance as Bias’ Revisited: Harnessing the Power of Text-Mining to Understand Media Coverage of Climate Change. March 30, 2013

McAllister et al. 2021. Balance as bias, resolute on the retreat? Updates & analyses of newspaper coverage in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada over the past 15 years. Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16, Number 9 DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac14eb


Also on this day: 

November 1988 – Australian Mining Journal says C02 is a Good Thing

November 1, 1959 – M1 motorway section opened

November 1, 1974 – UK civil servants writing to each other on “Climatology”

November 1, 1989 – Senior Australian politician talks on “Industry and Environment”

November 1, 1989 – “Greenhouse Action Australia” launches…

November 1, 1975 – Stephen Schneider tries to clear up the “Carbon Dioxide Climate Confusion.”

Categories
Australia Denial Economics of mitigation

October 31, 2006 – Stern Review “pure speculation” according to John Howard

Seventeen years ago, on this day, October 31st, 2006, Australian Prime Minister John Howard dismisses the report on “The Economics of Climate Change” by former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern as “pure speculation”


,

Fraser, A. 2006. Greenhouse Report Pure Speculation, Says Howard. Canberra Times 1 November

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia had just finally really woken up to climate change in September 2006. John Howard was beset on all sides and trying to fight back. At this point, he was probably still grumpy and resisting the idea of having to set up the Shergold Group Report. And so he took aim at the recently published Stern Review and called it pure speculation. 

What we learn is that a) people who are supposed to be responsible stewards of the future can be utter fools and that b) the species doesn’t know how to do concern about its own future. If it did, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Nothing in our cultural evolution in the West, at least the last 300 or 500 years or so has prepared us. And here we are. 

What happened next? Although Howard tried to do a pivot to save his skin it didn’t really convince anyone, probably not even himself. He got trolled by a senior ABC journalist on February 7. And he continued to sneer at Stern when Stern paid a flying visit in the first half of 2007. And of course, eventually, after leaving office, John Howard gave a talk to the Global Warming Policy Foundation or whatever it’s called that “one religion was enough.” 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

October 31, 1994 – Four Corners reports on Greenhouse Mafia activity

October 31, 2018 – Extinction Rebellion makes its declaration of rebellion

Categories
Cement and concrete

Concrete speculations – of climate, cement and hippies

It’s two hundred years and nine days since the patent for Portland cement was agreed. 

It went to a guy living not that far from where I now live.

Portland cement is THE cement.  It’s all around you, every day, one of the many things a modern person just takes for granted but would absolutely freak out anyone scooped up from 300 years ago.

We use a lot of it – 

“Geologists have calculated that since the 19th century, enough concrete has been produced to pour two pounds of it on every square yard of the Earth’s surface” (Schwägerl, 2024.)

And in doing so, we release a certain amount of carbon dioxide, one of the gases that traps heat from the Sun and is, how to put this, cooking the planet. (7% of man-made emissions, is the number people seem to agree on).

Here’s a graph from Our World in Data.


So, with COP93 (or thereabouts) in Baku coming up, there is the traditional flurry of articles in newspapers and magazines read by those who like to think of themselves as Concerned Citizens about the new technologies that will make everything okay.

The articles are sincere, well-written and well-researched.  Two I have read in the last 24 hours are here – 

And the Global Concrete and Cement Association will be fricking delighted (if I had more than two data points I’d make some concrete speculations on there being an actual deliberate campaign behind all this.

What does it all mean?  It means we as a species are in the shit, because we spent the last 36 years believing the sweet little lies that a tiny tax here, a nip and tuck there would, would suffice.  We derided the scientists as self-interested (somehow) and the hippies as eco-freak lunatics. Turns out though, that they were right. Oops.

I am doing a seminar – Carbon Capture Storage battles – past, present and near future (2025 to 2030) on Tuesday November 5th at 1pm. It’s free and open to anyone. More details, and registration are here. Or skip straight to the registration.

See also

On the UK and the issues around dispersed sites (most cement production is not in the “clusters”) see here.

and see also this

Anon, 2024. UltraTech Cement ties up with University of California for decarbonisation project. Business Line, October 25

Dateline: New Delhi
UltraTech Cement, an Aditya Birla Group company, has signed a collaboration agreement with the Institute for Carbon Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, to pilot a new technology- The Zero Carbon Lime (ZeroCAL)- developed by ICM that can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cement production.

Categories
Canada International processes

October 30, 1972 – Carroll Wilson writes to Maurice Strong, pondering networks

Fifty two years ago, on this day, October 30th, 1972 the Canadian oil baron who had sorted out the United Nations environment conference receives a letter (I know, “hold the front page” right?)

 In a letter to Maurice Strong, the chairman of the Stockholm conference, Carroll Wilson wondered “how and in what ways one might develop a kind of network of the rather limited number of key influential people in a certain number of countries around the world who are globally conscious and who have a vision extending to the end of this century and beyond and who have a deep concern for the environment in its broadest sense.” Wilson to Strong, October 30, 1972, Wilson papers, M.I.T. Archives, Box 44, File 1818.

 (Hart, David, 1992 Belfer thing)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Stockholm conference had happened. And the United Nations Environment Program had been created. There was a broader question of how to maintain or even increase momentum. What sorts of networks and communities might you need? Caroll Wilson, who’d been neck deep in organising the first study of man’s environmental impact in 1970 was clearly pondering the issues. And who better to talk with that Maurice Strong who had shepherded the Stockholm conference. 

What we learn is that in the aftermath of conferences there is talk about, “well, how do we sustain the momentum.” And here we are. And of course, if you try and have those conversations before, people are resistant because they just want their big moment of orgasm. And they don’t want to have to think about what comes next because they kind of on some level know that it will be a bust and you’ll be harshing their vibe, you’ll be spoiling things for them. Let them have their moment of pure, fat free content free reality free, splurge not to be cynical or anything. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

October 30, 1983 – Carl Sagan hosts ‘nuking ourselves would be bad’ conference.

October 30, 2006 – Stern Review published.

October 30, 2008 – a worker-greenie coalition? Maybe…

Categories
Europe International processes

October 29, 1990 – the Joint Council of Energy and Environment Ministers of the European Community decide to save the world.

On this day 34 years ago,

The Joint Council of the Energy and Environment Ministers of the member states of the European Community (EC) adopted a Council Decision at their meeting on October 29, 1990 concluding that, “the revision of energy and transportation policie1s to curb global carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere  should be one of the priority targets of the world.” They decided that CO2 emissions from the European Community should be stabilized by the year 2000 at 1990 levels, “although the Council notes that some member countries, according to their programmes, are not in a position to commit themselves to  this objective”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the world had “woken up” to the climate threat in 1988. An international treaty was supposed to be signed in mid-1992 at the already-scheduled “Earth Summit” about environment and development. The following week the Second World Climate Conference,, which was to be the unofficial start of the international climate negotiations, would begin in Switzerland, so the European Commission wanted to have some credibility for that..

What we learn

Fine words don’t butter so many parsnips, do they?

What happened next

Super-effective lobbying effort by big biz meant that no carbon tax was instituted. In 2005 a European Union Emissions Trading Scheme got underway.  ETS’s are preferred by bankers and consultants – more fees, more loopholes and dodges etc.  A carbon tax though according to economists, is “inefficient.”  So, there’s that…

Also on this day: 

October 29, 1991 – Australia told to pay more than poor countries to help save planet. Does it? Of course it doesn’t.

October 29, 2004 – Aussie environmentalists win a court case…